Drawing on principles of Dance Movement Therapy practice in a South African water research context
- Authors: Copteros, Athina
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Water-supply -- Management -- South Africa , Dance therapy , Movement therapy , Dance therapy -- South Africa , Movement therapy -- South Africa , Interdisciplinary research , Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge , Environmental education , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50759 , vital:26024
- Description: Research that draws on principles of Dance Movement Therapy in a South African water research context has not been done before. In order to initiate this exploration, culturally relevant themes from professional training in the United Kingdom were identified that could be developed in the context of trans-disciplinary water resource management research in South Africa. Hermeneutic phenomenology provided the methodological framing for this study. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to discover culturally relevant themes based on the recorded perceptions of the phenomenon of the training while it was taking place. The themes of: ‘awareness of power and difference'; ‘therapeutic adaptability'; ‘safety and ownership' and ‘connecting with the environment' emerged as overriding themes. Influences from Artistic Inquiry informed the inclusion of a creative embodied response to the themes that emerged. These themes then informed the application of some relevant principles of Dance Movement Therapy practice within a trans-disciplinary complex social-ecological systems researcher group. Eight members of the group participated in the study. They represented a range of academic research roles, genders and backgrounds. They reflected on their experience of an introductory session and five Dance Movement Therapy based sessions in semi-structured interviews. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, four themes were identified that capture the quality of the participants' shared experience of the phenomenon: ‘community engagement'; ‘embodiment'; ‘individual and group identity' and ‘integration'. Based on the integration of themes, it is concluded that principles of Dance Movement Therapy have a contribution to make. Core tenets of Dance Movement Therapy such as: inclusion of body and emotion; healing from trauma through embodiment; group processes held with safety and acceptance; and a deep level of connection to self, each other and the wider ecology, address some of the basic challenges of trans-disciplinary complex social ecological systems research practice. Through researchers experiencing principles of DMT practice for themselves and reflecting on their experience, it is possible that their embodied knowledge and reflections will influence and inform their engagement with communities in the future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Copteros, Athina
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Water-supply -- Management -- South Africa , Dance therapy , Movement therapy , Dance therapy -- South Africa , Movement therapy -- South Africa , Interdisciplinary research , Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge , Environmental education , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50759 , vital:26024
- Description: Research that draws on principles of Dance Movement Therapy in a South African water research context has not been done before. In order to initiate this exploration, culturally relevant themes from professional training in the United Kingdom were identified that could be developed in the context of trans-disciplinary water resource management research in South Africa. Hermeneutic phenomenology provided the methodological framing for this study. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to discover culturally relevant themes based on the recorded perceptions of the phenomenon of the training while it was taking place. The themes of: ‘awareness of power and difference'; ‘therapeutic adaptability'; ‘safety and ownership' and ‘connecting with the environment' emerged as overriding themes. Influences from Artistic Inquiry informed the inclusion of a creative embodied response to the themes that emerged. These themes then informed the application of some relevant principles of Dance Movement Therapy practice within a trans-disciplinary complex social-ecological systems researcher group. Eight members of the group participated in the study. They represented a range of academic research roles, genders and backgrounds. They reflected on their experience of an introductory session and five Dance Movement Therapy based sessions in semi-structured interviews. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, four themes were identified that capture the quality of the participants' shared experience of the phenomenon: ‘community engagement'; ‘embodiment'; ‘individual and group identity' and ‘integration'. Based on the integration of themes, it is concluded that principles of Dance Movement Therapy have a contribution to make. Core tenets of Dance Movement Therapy such as: inclusion of body and emotion; healing from trauma through embodiment; group processes held with safety and acceptance; and a deep level of connection to self, each other and the wider ecology, address some of the basic challenges of trans-disciplinary complex social ecological systems research practice. Through researchers experiencing principles of DMT practice for themselves and reflecting on their experience, it is possible that their embodied knowledge and reflections will influence and inform their engagement with communities in the future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Towards a holistic view of land and water management in the Gamtoos River catchment: applying a political geoecology approach
- Authors: Robb, Breanne Nicola
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7914 , vital:21323
- Description: The Eastern Cape of South Africa is characterised by water scarcity, constraint on usage, and inter-basin transfers. Water from the Gamtoos River catchment supplies water users both within the catchment and outside the catchment boundaries. This requires careful management of water and land to prevent overexploitation. However, management is complex as it is divided among various stakeholders with differing interests. Political geoecology is an approach that has the potential to provide holistic insight into the catchment’s water context. It was proposed to account for spatial patterns underlying interrelationships between resource distribution, human productive activity, and power relations by integrating the fields of political ecology and geoecology. This research was undertaken to further develop political geoecology as an approach for examining human-environment relations in geography through a case study of land and water management in the Gamtoos River catchment and its subcatchments. Distribution of resources and human influences were elucidated through generation of maps. To facilitate spatial analysis, the study area was delineated into catchment zones. Additionally, stakeholders were identified and classified at local, regional, national, and international levels. Power relations between stakeholders were investigated through qualitative content analysis of transcribed semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires that were administered to 34 research participants (selected through purposive and snowball sampling) directly involved in resource management in the catchment. Findings were spatially interpreted for each of the zones. The source zone was characterised by natural vegetation, steep, rugged topography, limited access ability, and power relations around restoration and conservation interests, which arose most significantly in the Baviaanskloof. The natural recapture zone was characterised by irrigated cultivation in areas of less harsh terrain in the upstream (Baviaanskloof and Kouga) sub-catchments. In the marginal Baviaanskloof, localised power relations over water distribution primarily arose. In the thriving commercial farming context of the Kouga, power relations included a local upstream-downstream legal conflict, competing levels of governance, issues with establishing water users’ associations (WUAs), and lack of adequate implementation of processes by government. Regional power relations are most prominent in the thriving commercial farming context of the overlapping regulated recapture and final use zones in the downstream Gamtoos sub-catchment. The reliance on upstream sub-catchments and tensions with the city of Port Elizabeth over water use are mediated through decisions made at the national level. Non-location specific power relations included indirect influence through energy, markets, and standards organisations, barriers in government preventing successful process implementation, and equity issues (particularly limiting the success of emerging farmers). These results illustrated that resource distribution, human productive activity, and power relations combine to produce unique characteristics in each of the zones in the Gamtoos catchment. The application of political geoecology in this case study situated the approach as useful for examining human- environment relations in geography.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Robb, Breanne Nicola
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7914 , vital:21323
- Description: The Eastern Cape of South Africa is characterised by water scarcity, constraint on usage, and inter-basin transfers. Water from the Gamtoos River catchment supplies water users both within the catchment and outside the catchment boundaries. This requires careful management of water and land to prevent overexploitation. However, management is complex as it is divided among various stakeholders with differing interests. Political geoecology is an approach that has the potential to provide holistic insight into the catchment’s water context. It was proposed to account for spatial patterns underlying interrelationships between resource distribution, human productive activity, and power relations by integrating the fields of political ecology and geoecology. This research was undertaken to further develop political geoecology as an approach for examining human-environment relations in geography through a case study of land and water management in the Gamtoos River catchment and its subcatchments. Distribution of resources and human influences were elucidated through generation of maps. To facilitate spatial analysis, the study area was delineated into catchment zones. Additionally, stakeholders were identified and classified at local, regional, national, and international levels. Power relations between stakeholders were investigated through qualitative content analysis of transcribed semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires that were administered to 34 research participants (selected through purposive and snowball sampling) directly involved in resource management in the catchment. Findings were spatially interpreted for each of the zones. The source zone was characterised by natural vegetation, steep, rugged topography, limited access ability, and power relations around restoration and conservation interests, which arose most significantly in the Baviaanskloof. The natural recapture zone was characterised by irrigated cultivation in areas of less harsh terrain in the upstream (Baviaanskloof and Kouga) sub-catchments. In the marginal Baviaanskloof, localised power relations over water distribution primarily arose. In the thriving commercial farming context of the Kouga, power relations included a local upstream-downstream legal conflict, competing levels of governance, issues with establishing water users’ associations (WUAs), and lack of adequate implementation of processes by government. Regional power relations are most prominent in the thriving commercial farming context of the overlapping regulated recapture and final use zones in the downstream Gamtoos sub-catchment. The reliance on upstream sub-catchments and tensions with the city of Port Elizabeth over water use are mediated through decisions made at the national level. Non-location specific power relations included indirect influence through energy, markets, and standards organisations, barriers in government preventing successful process implementation, and equity issues (particularly limiting the success of emerging farmers). These results illustrated that resource distribution, human productive activity, and power relations combine to produce unique characteristics in each of the zones in the Gamtoos catchment. The application of political geoecology in this case study situated the approach as useful for examining human- environment relations in geography.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
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